Exeunt Magazine: Putting your experience of a show into words is a messy business. A mass of feelings and memories and criticisms has to be poured into the modest vessel of a theatre review, and a lot gets spilled. Critics often fall back on neat phrases to gesture at flaws they’re reluctant to spell out, or to wave impotently at a whole mass of ideas that would take a PhD thesis to explore.
5 comments:
For the most part in reading reviews, I feel that I can understand what the critic was thinking and feeling and describing. Occasionally, however, I do find myself a bit lost with their big words with lofty meanings that could point to so many different specifics if more details were in play. This article really did not clear that up, but after reading the first paragraph I realized quickly that was not really the point. While this did seem like a piece written solely for entertainment, I think it did an important thing in humanizing the critics. Critics are often portrayed as haughty, better-than-the-rest-of-us intellectuals, but they’re really just people trying to tell other people what they think of a show. It’s important to remember that while reviews do carry objectiveness about the shows it is also heavy with the critic’s opinion. And while they are more honed opinions, they were written by just people and do not have to be the end all be all on that show you were interested in but now has a bad review. Go see it if you want to, maybe (as hinted in this piece) the critic just had a bad seat.
This collection of words was amusing to read about. The article tried to demystify the big (and sometimes pompous) words the critics tend to use and their mindset behind using those words. Like Simone said above, it does humanize the critics. I can see the people struggling to fill the word count and meet the deadline behind the nebulous sentences now. But reading those reviews could be taxing to the readers as well. Rather than the wordy and lengthy reviews, I like to see the Little Man on San Francisco Chronicle. In the weekly theater review section, SF Chronicle introduces shows in one paragraphs, and to the left of the paragraph includes a drawing of Little Man in various states—jumping out of his seat and applauding, sitting up happily and applauding, sitting attentively, asleep in his seat, or gone from his seat. It’s simple, intuitive and effective. Sometimes the simplified rating could be harsh, but really it’s better than hiding true meanings behind the words.
This article was fun to read but not what I was expecting when I started to read it. I was interested in reading about how reviewers approach a review when they write one but from this article I gathered that there really is not set approach when it comes to reviewing art. I am sure there are techniques and categories that reviewers use to critique works of performance, but this article seems to think that behind all of those strategies are true thoughts of either hidden disgust, disinterest, or lust for the performers. While this article was fun, it seemed to have a very narrow view point about something so widely diverse. Overall, I was disappointed with how much I learned from this article.
To be honest, I sometimes can't even stand to read the reviews. I want to draw my own opinion on a piece of art. I've often found myself offended by the things a critic is saying, because I sometimes feel like they saw a different show than me. Sometimes the words they use make them appear as if they feel like they are better than everyone else, like the only show they will truly enjoy must be something extremely cerebral and esoteric. I know this is not the case with most critics, but when they use language that makes them seem inapproachable it hurts them rather than helps them, because I'm a lot less likely to put any stock in what they say, or read a review in the future. Personally I don't like talking to people who think they're better than everyone else, and I especially don't like reading it. Many critics come across this way. The way we view professional critics has changed drastically since the advent of the internet, because now we don't have to rely on those critics to tell us what's good or bad, the entire world is telling us. Criticism has to evolve with that, and critics need to separate themselves from the general populations as the "professional" reviewers, because currently, I barely take a critic any more seriously than I take an online reviewer. Using big words to confuse people and sound original does not help this, rather, it just makes me close the review and read a different one.
As pointed out by several other commenters, this article goes a long way to contextualize review and humanize theatre critics. It is very easy and common for those of us involved in theatre production to adopt a stereotyped, caricatured idea about critics, with bad reviews coming from grumpy pessimistic art haters and overly rosy reviews coming from frumpy naive critics who don’t have anything to say. These stereotypes are, of course, inaccurate, and I think they largely evolve from the uncomfortable nature of being told, as an artist, what is good and bad about your art. Often this process feels very personal, and it can be difficult to respect criticisms, good or bad, especially from people who aren’t primarily artists themselves. However, critics have an invaluable role as a third party advocate for the audience, and at the end of the day, theatre is an art in service of its viewers. We might all do well to remember that critics are an integral part of the theatre.
Post a Comment